Orpen and Knewstub had three daughters together, but the marriage was not a happy one by 1908, Orpen had begun a long-running affair with Mrs Evelyn Saint-George, a well-connected American millionairess based in London, with whom he also had a child. She ended their relationship in 1901, and Orpen married Grace Knewstub, the sister-in-law of Sir William Rothenstein. Whilst at the Slade, he became engaged to Emily Scobel, a model and the subject of The Mirror. Also in 1901, he held a solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in central London. Orpen depicted the 'Arnolfini' convex glass in several other paintings, including A Mere Fracture in 1901, during this period. Orpen's The Mirror, shown at the NEAC in 1900, references both Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 and also elements of seventeenth-century Dutch interiors, such as muted tones and deep shadows. His teachers at the Slade included Henry Tonks, Philip Wilson Steer and Frederick Brown, all of whom were members of the New English Art Club they ensured he exhibited there in 1899, and that he became a member in 1900. His two-metre-wide painting The Play Scene from Hamlet won the Slade composition prize in 1899. Orpen would include mirrors in his pictures to create images within images, add false frames and collages around his subjects, and often make pictorial references to works by other artists in his own paintings. At the Slade he mastered oil painting and began to experiment with different painting techniques and effects. During his six years at the college, he won every major prize there, plus the British Isles gold medal for life drawing, before leaving to study at the Slade School of Art between 18. Orpen was a naturally talented painter, and six weeks before his thirteenth birthday was enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Orpen appears to have had a happy childhood there. The family lived at 'Oriel', a large house with extensive grounds containing stables and a tennis court. The historian Goddard Henry Orpen was his second cousin. His nieces were Bea Orpen and Kathleen Delap. Both his parents were amateur painters, and his eldest brother, Richard Caulfield Orpen, became a notable architect. Charles Caulfield (1804–1862), the Bishop of Nassau. Biography Early life īorn in Stillorgan, County Dublin, William Orpen was the fourth and youngest son of Arthur Herbert Orpen (1830–1926), a solicitor, and his wife, Anne Caulfield (1834–1912), the eldest daughter of the Right Rev. Īfter his early death a number of critics, including other artists, were loudly dismissive of his work, and for many years his paintings were rarely exhibited, a situation that only began to change in the 1980s. His connections to the senior ranks of the British Army allowed him to stay in France longer than any of the other official war artists, and although he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 Birthday Honours, and also elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, his determination to serve as a war artist cost him both his health and his social standing in Britain. Most of these works, 138 in all, he donated to the British government they are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum. There he produced drawings and paintings of ordinary soldiers, dead men, and German prisoners of war, as well as portraits of generals and politicians. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in Edwardian society, though many of his most striking paintings are self-portraits.ĭuring World War I, he was the most prolific of the official war artists sent by Britain to the Western Front. Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London.
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